The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

October, and style him bishop of Damascus and martyr.
18. Conc. Labbe, t. xi. p. 274.
SS. JUVENTINUS AND MAXIMINUS, MARTYRS.
From the elegant panegyric of St. Chrysostom, t. 2, p. 578, ed. Montf.,
and from Theodoret, Hist. l. 3, c. 11.
A.D. 363.
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THESE martyrs were two officers of distinction in the foot-guards of
Julian the Apostate.[1] When that tyrant was on his march against the
Persians, they let fall at table certain free reflections on his impious
laws against the Christians, wishing rather for death than to see the
profanation {220} of holy things. The emperor, being informed of this,
sent for them, and finding that they could not be prevailed upon by any
means to retract what they had said, nor to sacrifice to idols, he
confiscated their estates, caused them to be cruelly scourged, and, some
days after, to be beheaded in prison at Antioch, January the 25th, 363.
The Christians, with the hazard of their lives, stole away their bodies,
and after the death of Julian, who was slain in Persia on the 26th of
June following, erected for them a magnificent tomb. On their festival
St. Chrysostom pronounced their panegyric, in which he says of these
martyrs: "They support the church as pillars, defend it as towers, and
repel all assaults as rocks. Let us visit them frequently, let us touch
their shrine, and embrace their relics with confidence, that we may
obtain from thence some benediction. For as soldiers, showing to the
king the wounds which they have received in his battles, speak with
confidence, so they, by an humble representation of their past
sufferings for Christ, obtain whatever they ask of the King of
heaven."[2]
Footnotes:
1. Julian, surnamed the Apostate, rebelled against Constantius, his
cousin-german, in the spring, in 360, and by his death, in November,
361, obtained the empire. He was one of the most infamous
dissemblers that ever lived. Craft, levity, inconstancy, falsehood,
want of judgment, and an excessive vanity, discovered themselves in
all his actions, and appear in his writings, namely, his epistles,
his satire called Misopogon, and his lives of the Cæsars. He wrote
the last work to censure all the former emperors, that he might
appear the only great prince: for a censorious turn is an effect of
vanity and pride. He was most foolishly superstitious, and
exceedingly fond of soothsayers and magicians. After the death of
Constantius, he openly professed idolatry, and by besmearing himself
with the blood of impious victims, pretended to efface the character